######################################################################### ## #W README.laguna The LAGUNA package Viktor Bovdi #W Alexander Konovalov #W Richard Rossmanith #W Csaba Schneider ## #H $Id: README.laguna,v 1.23 2007/02/07 17:15:13 alexk Exp $ ## ######################################################################### The LAGUNA Package ------------------ The title "LAGUNA" stands for "Lie AlGebras and UNits of group Algebras". This is the new name of the GAP4 package LAG, which is thus replaced by LAGUNA. LAGUNA extends GAP functionality for computations in group rings. Besides computing some general properties and attributes of group rings and their elements, LAGUNA is able to perform two main kinds of computations. Namely, it can verify whether a group algebra of a finite group satisfies certain Lie properties; and it can calculate the structure of the normalized unit group of a group algebra of a finite p-group over the field of p elements. System requirements and installation of LAGUNA ---------------------------------------------- LAGUNA does not use external binaries and, therefore, works without restrictions on the type of the operating system. It is designed for GAP4.4 and no compatibility with previous releases of GAP4 is guaranteed. To use LAGUNA online help it is necessary to install the GAP4 package GAPDoc by Frank Luebeck and Max Neunhoeffer, which is available from the GAP site or http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Frank.Luebeck/GAPDoc/. LAGUNA is distributed in standard formats(zoo,tar.gz,tar.bz2,-win.zip)and can be obtained from http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~alexk/laguna.htm. To unpack the archive `laguna-3.4.zoo' you need the program `unzoo', which can be obtained from the GAP homepage http://www.gap-system.org/ (see section `Distribution'). To install LAGUNA, copy this archive into the `pkg' subdirectory of your GAP4.4 installation. The subdirectory `laguna' will be created in the `pkg' directory after the following command: unzoo -x laguna-3.4.zoo History and Acknowledgements ---------------------------- Some of the features of LAGUNA were already included in the GAP4 package LAG written by the third author, Richard Rossmanith. The three other authors first would like to thank Greg Gamble for maintaining LAG and for upgrading it from version 2.0 to version 2.1, and Richard Rossmanith for allowing them to update and extend the LAG package. We are also grateful to Wolfgang Kimmerle for the organisation of the workshop "Computational Group and Group Rings Theory" (University of Stuttgart, 28-29 November, 2002) which allowed us to meet together and have fruitful discussions that led towards the final LAGUNA release. We are all very grateful to the members of the GAP team: Thomas Breuer, Willem de Graaf, Alexander Hulpke, Stefan Kohl, Steve Linton, Frank Luebeck, Max Neunhoeffer and many other colleagues for hepful comments and advise. We acknowledge very much Herbert Pahlings for communicating the package and the referee for careful testing LAGUNA and useful suggestions. A part of the work on upgrading LAG to LAGUNA was done in 2002 during Alexander Konovalov's visits to Debrecen, St.Andrews and Stuttgart Universities. He would like to express his gratitude to Adalbert Bovdi and Victor Bovdi, Colin Campbell, Edmund Robertson and Steve Linton, Wolfgang Kimmerle, Martin Hertweck and Stefan Kohl for their warm hospitality, and to the NATO Science Fellowship Programme, to the London Mathematical Society and to the DAAD for the support of this visits. Victor Bovdi, Alexander Konovalov, Richard Rossmanith and Csaba Schneider February 2007